TU ae SV í r sce T DT. 
SOME CRITICAL SPECIES OF ECHIUM. 407 
Lap., especially by De Candolle in Prodr. x. p. 23 *, where the two are 
confounded under the name of /. pyramidatum, so as to make that name, 
apparently so suitable, useless to indicate the form spoken of here, not to 
mention the risk of confusion between two such similar words as pyramidatum 
and pyramidale. 
J. Bauhin's figure of Æ. albo flore majus, already referred to, seems to 
represent this variety, to which the specimens in my list B are referable. 
The form of italicum called Echium luteum by Lapeyrouse, with an 
inadequate diagnosis, and rediscovered in 1874 by M. Naudin in the range 
of the Albères above Collioure, and by him named X. albereanum, requires 
some notice, especially as it has been regarded by Rouy as closely allied to 
E. pyrenaicum, with which it has no resemblance or relationship. It is 
described by Debeaux and Naudin in Soc. Agr. Pyr. Or. xxiii. p. 175 (1878), 
from examples cultivated by Naudin, as “ dressée-hérissée, très rameuse dans 
sa moitié supérieure, de plus de 1 mètre de hauteur, et plurieaule dés la 
base . . . . les leurs... . formant par leur ensemble une vaste panicule láche, 
diffuse et très ramifiée.” But the specimens I have seen e loco classico at 
Soréde, collected by L. Conill, of which the individuals with a broad panicle 
were distributed as italicum var. pyramidale (though utterly unlike pyramidale, 
Lap.), and those with a narrow inflorescence as italicum var. albereanum, 
cannot be separated from Æ. italicum. Both the narrower and the broader 
forms are intermediate between italicum altissimum and var. Biebersteinii as 
far as ramification is concerned, nor can 1 see any other distinctive character 
in sicco. There is some conflict of evidence as to the colour of the corollas, 
which are stated to be bluish white or slightly pinkish by Roumeguére in Soc. 
Agr. Pyr. Or. xxii. p. 163. note, but yellowish white, with an occasional 
pinkish blush, but not pale blue, by Naudin, /. c. 
A much more remarkable form— var. siculum, mihi = Æ. italicum, auctt. 
sic.—replaces typical italicum in Sicily. Where I have collected it in the 
stony fields of the province of Syracuse, it is a relatively low-growing but 
broad plant, with a forest of branches, spreading horizontally, when fully 
developed, in every direction ; but their arrangement is not pyramidal as 
in pyrenaicum, the lower ones not markedly exceeding the middle ones. The 
arrangement of the cincinni, the dull white corollas and filaments, and the 
size of the flowers are those of italicum not of pyrenaicum, from which it is 
also distinguished by the very yellow (in sicco) indumentum. This is extra- 
ordinarily copious ; on the stem it is long, patent and rigid, and so close as 
completely to conceal the surface. 
Todaro’s well-known exsiccata do not show the peculiar habit, as they are 
* The treatment of the genus Echium is one of the weakest parts of the * Prodromus.’ 
The Dorrageze were not completed by Aug. Pyr. de Candolle before his death, nor written 
de novo by his son. It is to be remembered that neither father nor son saw the Linnean 
specimens or even the plants of the ‘ Flora Graeca,’ 
